Yiddish Curses for the New Millennium

He should grow like an onion with his head in the ground.

We Jews have historically used our pisks instead of fists in dealing with others. If the old saw “words can kill” is accurate, we’ve refined the mission to: “maybe torture until your opponent, until his brain is farmisht and his tongue is hanging trying to best us.”

In previous articles I’ve discussed the art of the Yiddish curse as prophecy (“May you …). As a child I heard my parents say: “Er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd.” I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was, when uttered, grown ups would gishrei (scream) or faint. Finally, when I was of legal age, my parents told me solemnly, “It means ... ‘He should grow like an onion with his head in the ground.’”

The Yiddish curse has a baroque splendour in its intricate ability to prophesize.

Wha …?! Now that’s raw Yiddish power! While Anglo-Saxon curses often deal with body parts, Catholic curses go for blasphemy, and the Middle and Far East do their version of “Yo Mama,” insulting ancestors, the Yiddish curse has a baroque splendour in its intricate ability to prophesize. The most spectacular lull the “victim” with a positive opening, which then turns into a juicy, literate, malediction that no mere obscene word could possibly convey. According to the Proverb: “A curse is not a telegram: it doesn’t arrive so fast.” Like Jewish caviar, the Jewish curse must be savored.

But alas, as with far too much of our glorious heritage, JYAs (Jewish Young Adults) have lost the art. And why not? How many young Jews know from Czars, bedbugs, Mazurkas, Ukrainian regiments, tapeworms, trolley cars, delirium, outhouses, and “navel” onions?? So for you, my dear readers, I’m presenting the best Jewish Curses: old and new. I’ve written the New Jewish Curses that better “resonate” in the New Millenium. May you use them in good health, mein kind, and with noble purpose!

Favorite Old Yiddish Curses

May you be a person of leisure, take a daily nap – and may the lice in your shirt marry the bedbugs in your mattress and may their offspring set up residence in your underwear.

May you enjoy a good time with plenty of good Vodka – and may your blood turn to whiskey, so that 100 bedbugs get drunk on it and dance the mazurka in your belly button.

May you get passage out of the old village safely, and when you settle, may you fall into the outhouse just as a regiment of Ukrainians is finishing a prune stew and twelve barrels of beer.

May you be so enamored of good food that you turn into a blintz, and may your enemy turn into a cat, and may he eat you up and choke on you, so we can be rid of you both.

May you have a hundred houses, and in every house a hundred rooms and in every room 20 beds, and may you come down with a delirious fever that drives you from bed to bed.

May you turn into a centipede with ingrown toenails, may onions grow in your navel and may you lie in the earth and bake bagels.

May your tapeworm develop constipation while trolley cars run through your intestine as thieves camp out in your belly and steal your guts one by one.

carp with horse radish, boiled beef with tsimmis, potato pancakes with applesauce -- and may you choke on every bite. ALT or may your wife eat matzoh in bed and may you roll in the crumbs.

May your two sons grow up happy and strong. And may they become a doctor and a lawyer. And may each marry a wonderful women and have wealth. And may they each have many children and may they all name someone after you already!

NEW Yiddish Curses For JYA’S in the New Millennium

May your mother get you a fun new app that allows her to reach you more easily, and may you learn it also has a tracking device and “just knows” what you're up to, then repeats in her voice: “You're breaking my heart!”

May the men in your family be blessed with luxurious hair that remains thick and curly well into their eighties, and may you be the only one to inherent great-zayde Yossel’s recessive gene for male pattern baldness which kicks in the day after your Bar Mitzvah!

May you be approaching your 16th Birthday, and may you have been promised, your own car, and may you have your heart set on that red 2012 MazdaSpeed Protege that revs to 170 mph on Craig’s List, and may your parents proudly hand you the keys to a 2002 beige Chrysler station wagon!

May you be texting on a Jewish social networking site and get the following message from Shaloma2: “DYHM” thinking it means “Do You 'Heart' Me” – and may you then learn Shaloma2 is your mother and “DYHM” stands for “Do Your Homework, Mamala!

May you be a hot new Glatt Kosher chef, and may The Food Network challenge you to a televised Throwdown showdown, and may Irishman Bobby Flay beat you, in front of millions, with his gribenes!

May it be Christmas Day, and while your gentile friends are eating ham, surrounded by red and green lights and holly boughs, sitting around a gezunta tree, opening presents, may the only Glatt Kosher Chinese restaurant within 50 miles be “closed for renovations!”

May you write a series of brilliant proposals on your computer which will make you a young millionaire, and may your computer crash, but fortunately may you have backed-up with a fancy system your brother, the computer geek, installed -- and may you learn his brilliant system stopped functioning in 2010, as he was eager to get to his chess match!

May you be a hard-working Jewish writer, and may you be studious, conscientious, and passionate in your work, and may you have wonderful readers who appreciate your humor, your research, and your dedication – and may every ethnic humor book publisher say, “too Jewish!”

Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

Quirky, no-nonsense, funny, Marnie – writer, editor, author, lecturer, clinician, and administrator -- is a straight-shooter, who has a distinctive voice and takes on the world in her columns, features, and books. Her advice column was syndicated through Tribune Media Services, and it currently appears in Singular magazine as Singular Solutions. Marnie has written over 20 books/calendars, including the series “A Little Joy, A Little Oy." Her books include Yiddishe Mamas: The Truth About the Jewish Mother and A Little Joy, A Little Oy (pub. AndrewsMcMeel). She is also an award-winning “calendar queen” having written over 20. She has been nominated for both an Emmy and Writers Guild award.Thefullwiki.org has listed Marnie Macauley on their list of top Jewish_American writers, dead or living. (She’s still deciding which.) She was also chosen as a Distinguished Woman in Las Vegas in March of 2014.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 12

(11)
Esther,
November 7, 2011 4:55 PM

I may be a modern-day Jewish Young Adult, but my Bobbe loved teaching me all the Yiddish curses from when she was younger....and whenever I use one at school, all the Jewish teenagers start laughing/gasping in shock/fainting/or screaming. And no one else seems to know why, except for the 12 Jewish people at my school (since I go to a public school where the majority of the student population [99.99%] is Gentiles). So it's pretty funny when my Pre-Calculus teacher (who is Jewish) gasps when I utter a Yiddish curse about the amount of homework I've been assigned and I won't be able to finish it that night as I would have a USY Board Meeting when I get home. :D

(10)
Helen Shloiomovitz,
October 31, 2011 8:31 AM

Delayed shock

love the delayed shock technique.
A rather unpleasant woman asked me how old I thought she was. I replied "I can't give you a figure but I reckon you're considerably younger........................than you look"

(9)
dov29,
October 28, 2011 6:50 PM

Onions

There's a response fo your first curse.
You should grow like a potato "in gonsen in dreard" (entirely in the ground).

(8)
Shari,
October 28, 2011 4:34 AM

If you can't beat 'em.....

Very cute. I have one for you, too. May your homework come easily, may you learn the secret of duck gribenes, and beat the pants off Bobby Flay, may you find out that a new restaurant, with excellent Shwarma opened up across the street, may your publisher decide that "too Jewish" is perfect, may you have saved all your data, so even with the crash you've still got plenty of back-up, and may you get on the scale after Yom Tov, and find out that you need to buy a new wardrobe, because you gained weight and the one you have, doesn't quite fit anymore. LOL, Shari

MARNIE, THE AUTHOR,
October 30, 2011 12:09 AM

HYSTERICAL!!!!!!

LOL!!!

(7)
Anonymous,
October 27, 2011 6:22 AM

Joy, thank you.
could we please have it in Yddish .

(6)
BEV.,
October 27, 2011 4:13 AM

Her best kind of writing!!!

there is enough sadness in the world, this kind of writing makes one forget for just a bit. thanks,Marnie!!!
LYTP

(5)
kg,
October 27, 2011 1:40 AM

OMG I'm still laughing so hard it hurts...

(4)
Jen,
October 25, 2011 11:34 PM

funny curses

There was a sign up at work over RH/YK saying, "May your life be like toilet paper. Long and useful."

(3)
Leah,
October 25, 2011 7:09 PM

Thank you! I can NOW tell my repeat- in Yiddish, the correct spelling of the onion in the ground saying....too funny.

(2)
SKH,
October 25, 2011 5:04 PM

Good, but Punjabi and Sikh curses are more juicy!

Well I like the Jewish curses. However, the Punjabi curses which are curses of people of the province of West Punab in Pakistan, and of Sikhs who are people of East Punjab in India, are far more colorful and juicy. Unfortunately they are also unprintable.

I want to know about the concept of "sin" due to Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The Christian concept of sin revolves around the fall of the man and the "original sin." Does Judaism view it the same way?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Adam and Eve were punished according to their actions. In other words, God laid down the conditions for Adam and Eve to live in the garden, provided they would not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. However, if they were to eat from that tree they would be punished by experiencing death. (If they had not eaten from the tree, they would have remained immortal.)

This sets down the basic principle in Judaism of Reward and Punishment. Basic to this is that every person has the choice of doing good or bad. When a person chooses "good" – as defined by God – he is able to draw close to God. In other words, every individual has a chance to "gain salvation" through his own actions.

My understanding of Christianity, however, is that the Original Sin has infected all of mankind to the point where individuals are incapable of achieving salvation through their own initiative. Man is "totally depraved" and therefore his only hope of salvation is through the cross.

This belief is contrary to the teachings of Judaism. From the Torah perspective, an individual does not need to rely on anyone else to atone for them. In Judaism, sins can be "erased" altogether by sincere repentance and a firm resolution never to repeat the mistakes.

For more on this, read "Their Hollow Inheritances" by Michael Drazin – www.drazin.com

Yahrtzeit of Moses in 1273 BCE (Jewish year 2488), on the same day of his birth 120 years earlier. (Consequently, "May you live to 120" has become a common Jewish blessing.) Moses was born in Egypt at a time when Pharaoh had decreed that all Jewish baby boys be drowned in the Nile River. His mother set him afloat in a reed basket, where he was -- most ironically -- discovered by Pharaoh's daughter and brought to Pharaoh's palace to be raised. When Moses matured, his heart turned to aid the Jewish people; he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Jew, and he fled to Midian where he married and had two sons. God spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush, instructing him to return to Egypt and persuade Pharaoh to "let My people go." Moses led the Jews through the ten plagues, the Exodus, and the splitting of the Red Sea. Seven weeks later, the Jews arrived at Mount Sinai and received the Torah, the only time in human history that an entire nation experienced Divine revelation. Over the next 40 years, Moses led the Jews through wanderings in the desert, and supervised construction of the Tabernacle. Moses died before being allowed to enter the promised Land of Israel. He is regarded as the greatest prophet of all time.

Lack of gratitude is at the root of discontent. In order to be consistently serene, we must master the attribute of being grateful to the Creator for all His gifts. As the Torah (Deuteronomy 26:11) states, "Rejoice with all the good the Almighty has given you." This does not negate our wanting more. But it does mean that we have a constant feeling of gratitude since as long as we are alive, we always have a list of things for which to be grateful.

[Just before Moses' death] God said to him, "This is the Land that I promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (Deuteronomy 34:4).

The Midrash says that Moses pleaded to live long enough to be able to enter the Promised Land. He surrendered his soul only after God instructed him to enter Heaven and inform the Patriarchs that the Israelites had come to their Land and that God had indeed fulfilled His promise to give the Land of Israel to their descendants. To fulfill God's will was dearer to Moses than his craving to enter the Land.

It is only natural to cling to life, and the thought of leaving this world is depressing. However, if a person develops the attitude that he lives only in order to fulfill God's will, then life and death are no longer polar opposites, because he lives to do the will of God, and when that will requires that he leave this world, he will be equally obedient.

The seventh day of Adar is the anniversary of Moses' death. He wanted to enter the Promised Land so that he could fulfill the commandments and thereby have a new opportunity to fulfill the Divine wish. He surrendered his soul willingly when he was told that there was a special commandment for him to perform, one that could only be achieved after leaving this earth.

We refer to Moses as Rabbeinu, our teacher. He not only taught us didactically, but by means of everything he did in his life - and by his death, as well.

Today I shall...

try to dedicate my life to fulfilling the will of God, so that even when that will contradicts my personal desires, I can accept it with serenity.

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